


The schoolars of darkness

by Dramono



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Gen, Ghost Stories, Legends, Mythology - Freeform, War, darkness vs light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 10:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13809537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dramono/pseuds/Dramono
Summary: Oh, look at you all. So young, so innocent, so sure that your goddess will always protect you and keep you safe in her loving touches of light, brought upon you by her torch. That even in the dead of night, her love will shine upon you through her mirror.But there are places where the loving empress never shines her light. Where darkness has taken its grip on the goddess’s beauty, where malice has dug its fangs into our world, and while most of them resides deep below the ground, some of them does not. So sit down, my children. Sit down, and let me tell you the tale the Rimorians.





	The schoolars of darkness

**Author's Note:**

> So this was my attempt to create something more in the style of a ghost story, building on the role-playing campaign I've been running with a couple of my friends.  
> I tried to create something with felt eerie and creepy, but I'm not entirely sure how well it turned out, so I'd definitely like some feedback.

Oh, look at you all. So young, so innocent, so sure that your goddess will always protect you and keep you safe in her loving touches of light, brought upon you by her torch. That even in the dead of night, her love will shine upon you through her mirror.  
But there are places where the loving empress never shines her light. Where darkness has taken its grip on the goddess’s beauty, where malice has dug its fangs into our world, and while most of them resides deep below the ground, some of them does not. So sit down, my children. Sit down, and let me tell you the tale the Rimorians.

Oh, what’s that? You have already heard of the Rimorians? You have all heard of the demons told about in the book of salvation? The creatures born and trapped in the night, who prey upon those who dare step upon their domain and cross their paths? The creatures whom the guardians of the holy light subdued and banished from this mortal realm in eternal sleep, when they broke the goddess’s order and came to slay us?  
Well, that is the story we were all told, was it not? The story about the monsters thirsting for nothing but destruction and everlasting torment in fire and carnage. The creatures striving for nothing but blood and madness, as they corrupted the holy order of the divine, tainting and maiming as they pleased. Creatures now gone.  
That is the story they want you to hear, but not the true one. The guardians know how much power the truth holds, the destruction it could cause, and they fear it.  
So settle down children, and hear the truth.

Long ago, before any line of kings now known by name was ever heard of, there was a land in the north. This land, Rimorion, the land of the searching, was ruled not by either king, queen, or piety, but by the leaders of a dark order once known as the thirteen schools, or as they called them, the sinds.  
Hunger, lust, wrath, fear, sloth, bliss, pride, faith, superiority, jealousy, greed, ambition, and chaos. Thirteen forces they believed to drive forth their society to prosper, to evolve. They held nothing sacred, believed no gods, and as such, they became an arrogant and careless people, who denied the existence of the goddess’s sacred order.  
They held but one thing close to their hearts. Like we treasure the teachings of our holy mother, they had looked upon the machinations of our world, and the sight had awakened a thirst deep within them, a thirst for knowledge, a thirst for control. They hungered for the secrets born within us all the same way we hunger for salvation, and with their meddling and studies of the arcane they became one of the greatest powers of all time. They build wonders the likes of which has never been seen, cured ailments incurable in their very nature, and spoke of the truths as we sing to she who guides us. They learned the secrets of life, death, and even, some claims, reality itself.  
However, their power and lack of faith made them an enemy of the holy guards of light, to the goddess herself, and it was only a question of time, before the ancient holy empire and this reign of questions went to war.  
It was a war the likes of which had never been seen. The empire was a mighty force fuelled by the faith and strength of more than a thousand kingdoms, blessed by the grace of the goddess herself, but their enemy was cunning, ruthless, and powerful. They relied not upon the grace of a god, but upon the strength of their scholars to spark and fuel the fires of war, and through those fires they crafted their weapons, weapons that we should not be able to fathom in neither dreams nor nightmares. As the war went its course, the scholars were given the freedom to show their true might, and they came to be feared by the men they fought against, who compared them not to man of flesh and bone, but to creatures of night and shades. They manipulated the forces of nature to destroy entire armies, even castles, in the same time it would take a soldier to kill another. They created vicious monstrosities to fight their enemies, ruthless beasts never meant to roam this world, and even conjured plagues and death into the very air, soil, and water of their own land, to defeat the foe they despised. Their wrath was equivalent to that of the mounds of fire, the darkness in their hearts as pitch-black as the depths of the ocean, and their twisted minds more hellish than anything within this world.    
In the end however, the forces of light proved too much, for while the scholars were worth tens of soldiers when caught off guard, and hundreds when prepared, the banners of the light were as numerous as the goddess’s tears in the darkened sky, and their faith as pure as the light she shines upon us. The armies never wavered, no matter how many times they saw their fellow soldiers slaughtered by never-ending fire, by blood-coughing and scream-inducing sickness, and by creatures so hideous and monstrous no goddess or creature of sanity could be their creator, and they eventually managed to force their dark foes back.  
The scholars of the thirteen schools fled to their capital, and were finally defeated when their last desperate endeavour to manipulate the outcome of the war blew up in their faces. It tore a rift into reality, taking with it everything living in its vicinity, including the scholars.

The few scholars who survived were hunted down and mercilessly killed by the guards of light, burned, mangled, and finally sealed away in tombs of obscurity. But the effect of their doing proved too much, and the imprint they left upon the world everlasting.  
Their creations, freed when the connection to their masters broke, went feral, their spawn still roaming in the darkness, fulfilling their ancient duty of hunting, feasting, killing. The plagues they unleashed upon the land are still a threat in the north, striking at random wherever they please, and people who resides too deeply within their lands are to this day still often struck by discomfort, unease, madness, speaking of voices in the shadows, sights not true, and thoughts not their own.   
As time passed by, their legend became something more, something darker. They became demons of the night, creatures spoken of in hushed voices, if ever, never mentioned by name or in the dead of night, less they come for you, less they take you. A legend only fuelled further by the writings in the book of salvation.  
Their cities are either forgotten or populated by people blissfully unaware of their story, their capital carefully hidden and guarded by the order of light, their relics scattered and hidden away, and their beliefs only held by few who carefully hides this darkness within their hearts.  
This is the truth that the guards and the inquisition wish to hold from you, that the ancient foe wasn’t an outside force, but mortals like you and I. People who chose to disobey the truth of the blazing queen, were prosperous, and was punished for this.

But what happened to the rest of them, you may ask. What happened to the scholars who was taken from our world by their own machinations?  
Well, most would guess they were killed, even that they ceased to be all together, just so they can sleep soundly at night. But some of us think otherwise, and are very much afraid.  
For we believe that the scholars of void and darkness are still out there, that they are alive, building and growing and searching like they did before. That they have become something else through the decades of emptiness and darkness.  
But we also fear that in their hearts, there is still a burning vengeance, a longing for what they once had and now has lost, That they keep on scratching at the barriers of reality, franticly searching for the gateway to our world.  
So when you lie in your bed tonight, and you hear the scratching of the floorboards leading down into nothing, just know that it could either be the rats searching for food, or the ancient scholars of Rimorion, slowly parting the veils to our world, and be afraid.  
Once they were few, now they are many.  
Once they were people, now…


End file.
